The utah wildlife action plan is a 10-year plan for the utah division of wildlife resources and conservationpartners to align and coordinate programmatic and project level aspects of their planning…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (DOI Fish and Wildlife Service Region 6) awarded the State of Utah, Division of Wildlife Resources a formula grant of $132,307.69 under the State Wildlife Grants (SWG) Program (CFDA 15.634) for the period of July 1, 2025, through December 31, 2026. This funding supports the coordination of implementation and revision of the Utah Wildlife Action Plan (UWAP), a ten-year strategic initiative designed to align conservation efforts across the state and its partners around species of greatest conservation need (SGCN).

The primary deliverables under this award include data management and handling services related to the UWAP, with particular emphasis on the Natural Heritage Program's management of species locality records within the Division's central database. The funding enables the Division to maintain and expand its coordinated list of species requiring conservation attention, identify and protect critical habitats, and document primary threats to SGCN populations. By supporting proactive state-level conservation planning and species monitoring, this grant facilitates Utah's demonstrated conservation track record, which has resulted in more than 90 percent of petitioned species remaining off the federal Endangered Species Act listing, thereby maintaining wildlife management under state authority while supporting economic growth.

The utah wildlife action plan is a 10-year plan for the utah division of wildlife resources and conservationpartners to align and coordinate programmatic and project level aspects of their planning and implementation. Theuwaps cornerstone are the species in greatest conservation need in utah. Having a coordinated list of species inneed of conservation attention allows all conservation partners in utah to focus their attention on species trulyneeding conservation attention. The uwap identifies important habitats for the sgcns so that these habitats canbe maintained protected and even expanded. The primary threats to the sgcns are also identified so thatconservation partners with authority to address those threats can work toward alleviating and minimizing them.while some of the sgcns in the uwap are species that are already listed as threatened or endangered under theendangered species act most are not and the goal of the uwap is to maintain and restore healthy speciespopulations habitats and minimize threats to prevent the need for additional species listings under the ESA. Overthe past 20 years utah has demonstrated a strong conservation ethic for its native species through the uwap andprovided the conservation track record to keep species off the ESA. In fact, the U.S. Fish and wildlife servicehas found that more than 90 percent of the utah species petitioned for listing under the ESA have not warrantedprotection which demonstrates effective state management for these species. Keeping species management understate authority allows for effective management and opportunities for utah to continue to grow economically. Thisgrant supports the coordination of implementation and revision of the uwap. This grant supports much of the data handling needs created by the utah wildlife action plan. The udwrs naturalheritage program manages the udwr locality records for sgcns. The unhp staff continually add new species localityrecords to our central database as data are received from the udwr biologists and uwap partners. Maintainingsgcn locality information is critical to determining the success of the uwap in maintaining healthy populationsof sgcns in utah.